E-commerce. Chapter 4. Building an E-commerce Web Site. Kenneth C. Laudon. Fourth Edition. Copyright 2007 Pearson Education, Inc.

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E

E-commerce

business technology society business. technology. society.

Fourth Edition

Kenneth C. Laudon Carol Guercio Traver Carol Guercio Traver

Chapter 4

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Right-Sizing a Web Site

Class Discussion

 What are the factors you should take into

account when sizing a Web site’s infrastructure?

 Why is peak usage an important factor to

consider?

 What did eBay discover from its use of

OPERA? OPERA?

 How can operators of smaller sites deal with

the right sizing issue? the right-sizing issue?

IBM’s High Volume Web Sites

IBM s High Volume Web Sites

Simulator

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Building an E-commerce Site: A

S

t

ti A

h

Systematic Approach

 Two most important management challenges

in building a successful e-commerce site are:

 Developing a clear understanding of business objectives

 Knowing how to choose the right technology to achieve those objectives

Pieces of the Site-Building Puzzle

 Main areas where you will need to make y

decisions in building a site include:

 Human resources and organizational

capabilities—creating a team that has the skill set to build and manage a successful site

to build and manage a successful site

 Hardware

 Software

 Telecommunications

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The Systems Development Life Cycle

 Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC):

Methodology for understanding the business Methodology for understanding the business objectives of a system and designing an

appropriate solution appropriate solution

 Five major steps in the SDLC:

 Systems analysis/planning

 Systems design

 Building the system

 Testingg

 Implementation

Web Site Systems Development Life Cycle

Figure 4.2, Page 201

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System Analysis/Planning: Identifying

Business Objectives, System Functionality,

j

,

y

y,

and Information Requirements

 Business objectives: List of capabilities you

want your site to havey

 System functionalities: List of the types of

information system capabilities you need to information system capabilities you need to achieve your business objectives

 Information requirements: Information

elements that the system must produce in elements that the system must produce in order to achieve the business objectives

S

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i

B

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Obj

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Systems Analysis: Business Objectives,

System Functionality, and Information

Requirements for a Typical E-commerce Site

Table 4 1 Page 202 Table 4.1, Page 202

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Systems Design: Hardware and Software

Platforms

 System design specification: Description of y g p p the main components of a system and their relationship to one another

relationship to one another

 System design can be broken down into two

t parts:

 Logical design – data flow diagram, processing functions to be performed, and database to be used

 Physical design – translates logical design into physical components (HW, SW, link capacity)

A Logical Design for a Simple Web Site

Figure 4 3 (a) Page 204 Figure 4.3 (a), Page 204

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A Physical Design for a Simple Web Site

Figure 4 3 (b) Page 204 Figure 4.3 (b), Page 204

Building the System: In-House versus

O t

i

Outsourcing

 Outsourcing: hire outside vendor to provide g p

services involved in building site

 Build own vs outsourcing:

 Build own vs. outsourcing:

 Build your own requires team with diverse skill set; choice of software tools; both risks and possible choice of software tools; both risks and possible benefits

 Host own vs outsourcing

 Host own vs. outsourcing

 Hosting: Hosting company responsible for ensuring site is accessible 24/7 for monthly fee

site is accessible 24/7, for monthly fee

 Co-location: Firm purchases or leases Web server (with control over its operation), but server is located (with control over its operation), but server is located at vendor’s facility

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Choices in Building and Hosting

Figure 4 4 Page 205 Figure 4.4, Page 205

The Spectrum of Tools for Building

Your Own E-Commerce Site

Cheapest and i l b Economical but most

ff Most expensive, but simplest, but limited “look and feel” and

difficult, achieve

desired “look and feel” and functionality but

achieve desired “look and feel” and

functionality and

Slide 4-16

feel and functionality and functionality, but

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Key Players: Hosting/Co-Location Services Key Players: Hosting/Co-Location Services

GoDaddy.com Qwest Communication Oneandone.com NTT/Verio

IBM Global Services Rackspace IBM Global Services Rackspace

MOSSO ServerBeach

Testing, Implementation, and Maintenance

 Testing: Includes unit testing, system testing,

and acceptance testing by management and acceptance testing by management personnel

 Implementation and maintenance:

 Maintenance is ongoing Maintenance is ongoing

 Need continual checking, testing, and repair

 Maintenance cost roughly equals development cost

 Benchmarking: process by which site is compared to those of competitors in terms of response speed to those of competitors in terms of response speed, quality of layout, and design

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Factors in Web Site Optimization

Components of a Web Site Budget

+

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Simple versus Multi-tiered Web Site

A

hit

t

Architecture

 System architecture: refers to the

arrangement of software, machinery, and tasks in an information system needed to tasks in an information system needed to achieve a specific functionality

T ti hit t W b d t

 Two-tier architecture: Web server responds to requests for Web pages and a database server provides backend data storage

provides backend data storage

 Multi-tier architecture: Web server is linked to a middle-tier layer that typically includes a series of middle tier layer that typically includes a series of application servers that perform specific tasks, as well as to a backend layer of existing corporate

systems

Two-Tier E-commerce Architecture

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Multi-tier E-commerce Architecture

Figure 4.9(b), Page 207

Web Server Software

 All e-commerce sites require basic Web

server software to answer HTTP requests from customers

 Apache the leading Web server software;

works with UNIX Linux and Windows works with UNIX, Linux, and Windows operating systems

 Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS)

the second major Web server softwarej

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Key Players in Web Server Software

Used by 55% of Fortune 1 000 Fortune 1,000 companies

Advantages of Each Web Server Software Advantages of Each Web Server Software

 Choice of Web server software has no effect

on the look of Web pages delivered to customers

customers

 Advantages g

 Microsoft’s development suite: integrated,

powerful and easy to use powerful, and easy to use

 Unix’s suite: exceptionally reliable and

stable, and supported by worldwide open

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Basic Functionality Provided by Web Servers

Table 4.3, Page 216

Site Management Tools

 All Web servers contain basic site

management tools that verify that links on pages are still valid and also identify orphan pages are still valid and also identify orphan files

 Additional site management software and

services such as those provided by services such as those provided by

Webtrends can be purchased to monitor customer purchases marketing campaign customer purchases, marketing campaign effectiveness, and keeping track of standard

hit t d i it i f

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Webtrends Marketing Lab2

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Dynamic Page Generation Tools

 Driven by the fact that it’s easier to change the contents of a database than it’s to change the code of an HTML page

code of an HTML page

 Dynamic page generation: contents of Web page stored as objects in database rather than being h d d d i HTML f t h d h d d hard-coded in HTML; are fetched when needed from database

 Tools include CGI (Common Gateway Interface)

 Tools include CGI (Common Gateway Interface), ASP (Active Server Pages), JSP (Java Server Pages)

L t ( t i d f h i

 Lowers menu costs (costs incurred for changing product descriptions and prices), permits easy online market segmentation (can sell same online market segmentation (can sell same product to different markets), and enables cost-free price discrimination (can sell same product to different customers at different prices)

to different customers at different prices)

Application Servers

 Web application servers: Provide specific pp p business functionality required of a Web site

 Basic idea: to isolate the business

applications from the details of displaying

W b t f t d d d t il

Web pages to users on front end and details of connecting to databases on back end

 Example of middleware software

 Number of different types available, providing a u be o d e e t types a a ab e, p o d g a variety of functionality

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Application Servers and Their Functions

Table 4 4 Page 220 Table 4.4, Page 220

E-commerce Merchant Server Software

 Provides the basic functionality needed for online

 Provides the basic functionality needed for online sales: Online catalog, shopping cart, credit card processing

 Merchant server software packages: Offer

integrated environment that provides functionality and capabilities needed to develop sophisticated and capabilities needed to develop sophisticated, customer-centric site

 Basic packages: Bizland, Hypermart, Yahoo! S ll B i M h t S l ti

Small Business Merchant Solutions, Freewebs.com, Paypal.com

 Midrange suites: IBM’s WebSphere

 Midrange suites: IBM s WebSphere

Commerce Express, MS’s Commerce Server 2007

Hi h d k IBM’ W bSh

 High-end packages: IBM’s WebShpere Commerce Pro & Enterprise, Broadvision Commerce

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Merchant Server Software Packages

(E-commerce Suites)

commerce Suites)

 Key factors to consider in choosing include:Key factors to consider in choosing include:

 Functionality

 Support for different business modelspp  Business process modeling tools

 Visual site management tools and reportingg p g  Performance and scalability

 Connectivity to existing business systems  Compliance with standards

 Global and multicultural capability  Local sales tax and shipping rules

Building Your Own E-Commerce Site:

Web Services and Open Source Options

 Suitable for small and startups firmsp

 2 options depending on programming skill and time available

 Utilize e commerce merchant services: Yahoo’s Small

 Utilize e-commerce merchant services: Yahoo s Small Business Merchant Solutions, Freemerchant.com, Bigstep.com, Entrabase.com, Tripod.com

 Utilize open source merchant server software:

Web server: Apache;

Shopping cart: OSCommerce ZenCart AgoraCart;

Shopping cart: OSCommerce, ZenCart, AgoraCart;

Credit card processing: Echo Internet Gateway, ASPDotNetStorefront; ;

Database: MySQL;

Programming Language: PHP, PERL;

Analytics: Google Analytics

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Choosing the Hardware for an E-commerce

Site

 Hardware platform: refers to all the underlying

computing equipment that system uses to achieve e commerce functionality

achieve e-commerce functionality

 Objective to have enough platform capacity to j g p p y meet peak demand but not so much that you are wasting money

are wasting money

 Important to understand the different factors

th t ff t d it d l bilit f

that affect speed, capacity, and scalability of a site

Right-Sizing Your Hardware Platform:

The Demand Side

 Demand that customers put on site is the most

important factor affecting the speed of site

 Factors involved in demand include:

 Number of simultaneous users in peak periods N t f t t ( fil )

 Nature of customer requests (user profile)

 Server Network Bandwidth

 Type of content (dynamic versus static Web pages)

 Required security

 Number of items in inventory

 Number of page requests

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Factors in Right-sizing an E-commerce

Platform

Table 4.7, Page 225

Degradation in Performance as Number

of Users Increases

Figure 4.12 (a), Page 226

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Degradation in Performance as Number

of Users Increases

Figure 4.12 (b), Page 226

Capacity of Static Page Web Servers

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The Relationship of Bandwidth to Hits

Figure 4 14 Page 228 Figure 4.14, Page 228

SOURCE: IBM, 2003.

Right-Sizing Your Hardware Platform:

Th S

l Sid

The Supply Side

 Scalability: Ability of site to increase in size as

 Scalability: Ability of site to increase in size as demand warrants

 Ways to scale hardware:

 Vertically: increase processing power of individual

 Vertically: increase processing power of individual components

 Horizontally: employ multiple computers to share

 Horizontally: employ multiple computers to share workload

 Improve processing architecture: combining

 Improve processing architecture: combining vertical and horizontal scaling and using artful design decisions

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Vertical and Horizontal Scaling Techniques

Table 4.8, Page 229

Vertically Scaling a System

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Horizontally Scaling a System

Improving the Processing Architecture of

Your Site

Table 4.9, Page 232

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Web Site Design: Basic Business

C

id

ti

Considerations

 Other important requirements for your site such

 Other important requirements for your site such as coherent Web site design, building active content and interactivity into your site (track content and interactivity into your site (track customers who come, leave, and return; track customers throughout your site to personalize customers throughout your site to personalize and customize their experience)

 To achieve basic business functionality of a Web

 To achieve basic business functionality of a Web site, need to be aware of design guidelines and software tools that can build active content and functionality

 Poorly designed Web sites drive customers away

Poorly designed Web sites drive customers away

E-commerce

Web Site

Features that

Annoy

Customers

SOURCE: Based on data from Hostway Corporation’s survey, Consumers’ Pet Peeves about C i l W b Sit H t Commercial Web Sites, Hostway Corporation, 2007.

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The Eight Most Important Factors in

Successful E commerce Site Design

Successful E-commerce Site Design

Table 4.10, Page 234

Tools for Interactivity and Active Content

 Widgets: Small pre-built chunk of code that executes automatically in your HTML Web pagey y p g

 Mashups: Pull functionality/data from one program and include it in another

 CGI (Common Gateway Interface): Standards for

communication between browser and program running f

on a server that allows for interaction between the user and the server

ASP (A ti S P ) E bl i

 ASP (Active Server Pages): Enables programmers using Microsoft’s IIS package to build dynamic pages

Ja a Used to create interacti it and acti e content on

 Java: Used to create interactivity and active content on client computer

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Tools for Interactivity and Active Content

 JSP (Java Server Pages): Similar to CGI and ASP; allows developers to use a combination of HTML, allows developers to use a combination of HTML, JSP scripts, and Java to dynamically generate Web pages in response to user requests

 JavaScript: Programming language invented by Netscape that is used to control objects on a Web page and handle interactions with browser

 ActiveX: Programming language invented by Mi ft t t ith J

Microsoft to compete with Java

 VBScript: Invented by Microsoft to compete with J S i t

JavaScript

 ColdFusion: Integrated server-side environment for developing interactive Web applications

developing interactive Web applications

Insight on Technology: Pumping Up the

C

t

E

i

U i

AJAX

d

Customer Experience Using AJAX and

Flash

Class Discussion

Wh t i AJAX? H d it k?

 What is AJAX? How does it work?

 Compare AJAX to the traditional client/server p

Web model

 How does Google Maps use AJAX?

 What are some alternative ways to achieve

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Personalization Tools

 Personalization: Ability to treat people based y p p on their personal qualities and prior history with your site

with your site

 Customization: Ability to change the product

t b tt fit th d f th t

to better fit the needs of the customer

 Cookies the primary method for achieving p y g

personalization and customization

The Information Policy Set

 Privacy policy: Set of public statements y p y p declaring how site will treat customers’

personal information that is gathered by site personal information that is gathered by site

 Accessibility rules: Set of design objectives

th t di bl d ff ti l

that ensure disabled users can affectively access site